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“Wow, Jason! That’s a stonker, that’s at least 48cm,” said Jake. “Alright, let’s get a photo and go. Nice one, Jason.”

“Ar, we have we have to walk ages to town we could try get a hitchhike!” Mark groaned.

“Yeah okay, Mark not a bad idea.” Jake replied.

Two hours later. “Hmm, it seems awfully quite today there hasn’t been a car since…” Said Jason.

Jake looked around, “oh, there actually hasn’t been a single car today there must be some event on or something like that.”

“Alright, we’re finally in town and where are all the cars plus where are all the people? It’s a Saturday the place should be packed. Something is up. I’m going to go spar and buy a drink, you guys want anything?” Said Jake.

“Yeah, get me a drink please Jake.” Mark answered.

“Yeah okay”

“Oi! The door won’t open it must be locked or something.” Yelled Jake. “Knock! Knock! Knock! It must be closed. It’s Saturday, it should be open unless it’s a public holiday.”

“Nah, I checked, it isn’t.” Mark hesitated before he yelled out his reply.

“Alright then let’s go somewhere else.” Said Jake.

“Bang! Ragh!” The mysterious sound leaped through the gaps underneath the clear door that exposes the darkness in Spar.

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“Yo, what the hell was that.” Jake panicked. “Brah, you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?” everyone replied.

“That noise! the noise coming from inside of spar. There must be something in there! But the doors are locked and the lights are off. Must be a rat or something… Let’s go for real this time.” Jake said.

bang grr ragh I heard that I heard that yeah what is that grr ragh its at the door it looks like a homeless crackhead wait no is that a zomb… wait no its just a homeless guy say something to him Jason ok hello can u here me ragh ragh yeah here can hear me he’s had a big night Jason grab a rock and smash the window yeah but mark your taking the blame you’re going to regret that what did u say mark nothing ok let’s do this then Jason ok then here we go.

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Bang crack wow he’s chasing me oh crap he’s got me ha-ha why is he trying to bite me he’s defiantly on something mark Jason get him off me help please he’s trying to bite me ow shit he bit me get him off get him off he’s off finally where did he bite u he bit me on the shoulder I’m feeling sick I’m going to vomit well don’t vomit on me please I got this shirt the other day come on lets go Jake……Jake lets go oi mark go get him ok oi Jake lets go grabs his shirt lets go ragh ragh wow Jake what are u doing he’s chasing me run Jason ok mark run don’t stop running quick get in here ok I’m in.

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We need to get out off this town now agreed I have an idea what those things are out there I believe they are zombies no not zombies I don’t want to die you wont die you will just turn into a zombie that’s even worse that’s your problem not mine anyways we need to get out of here unless you want to turn into a zombie like Jake you won’t if u follow my plan we need to get our shit together or were going to die follow my plan Jason run to my car and we will drive off and get the fuck out of here ok let’s go.

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Go run run I’m coming I’ve just been walking all day I’m a little puffed out Jason run crack ow my ankle what happed I tripped on a stick well hurry up and get up there coming there’s heaps of them quick get up and run there’s the car I’m in mark unlock the door for me quickly I’m sorry Jason what quickly mark please ill do anything please there coming good bye Jason this is what u get for blaming stuff on me have a nice life oh I mean zombie life

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https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27067-zombie-simulator-lets-you-plan-your-own-apocalypse/

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(Image: ZihniIoglu Kamil/SIPA/REX)

It began in Chicago. One by one, other cities fell. As the dead began to sweep across the nation, only those in the most remote locations remained safe. Soon, just a few desperate souls would remain alive.

That's what happened when I started my very own zombie outbreak, thanks to a model examining how an undead plague might ravage the United States. You can try it for yourself here.

Alexi Alemi of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and his colleagues began developing the model, which uses tools from disease modelling, as a class project after reading the novel World War Z. They aren't the first researchers to turn their hand to zombie maths - there's even a whole book on the subject - but Alemi wanted to up the challenge by using US census population data. "It felt like a natural challenge to simulate a 'realistic' zombie outbreak," he says.

The team took a classic epidemic model called SIR, in which people are either susceptible to, infected by or recovering from a disease - then they added a zombie twist. "For normal diseases you either get better on your own, or you might die," says Alemi. "Zombies don't get better, nor do they die, so the only way you can get rid of a zombie is for a human to actively kill it."

28 Days Later

This change meant the outcome of the model depended on a single parameter&colon; the ratio between bites and kills. This is a measure of how effective humans are at fighting off zombie attacks. From studying films like Shaun of the Dead, they decided the most realistic bite-to-kill value was 0.8 - in other words, zombies are around 25 per cent more likely to bite humans than humans are to kill zombies - but in the online simulator you can tweak that value.

With the basic model in hand, the team turned to how the infection might spread geographically. They created a grid over a map of the US and populated each cell in the grid with a certain number of humans, taken from the population of the 2010 census.

Running the simulation, they found that it didn't seem to matter where the outbreak started. From most locations it took around a month - or 28 Days Later - for most of the US to succumb to the plague, but some remote areas of Montana and Nevada remained zombie free even four months later . Alemi will present the results at the American Physical Society meeting in San Antonio, Texas, on Thursday.

Fortunately, zombies are fictional, but the research could also help people modelling real diseases. It turns out the equations in the zombie version of SIR are actually easier to solve than the real thing, so lessons learned from creating the model may translate back to real-world research, says Alemi.

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Zombie simulator lets you plan your own apocalypse

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It began in Chicago. One by one, other cities fell. As the dead began to sweep across the nation, only those in the most remote locations remained safe. Soon, just a few desperate souls would remain alive. That's what happened when I started my very own zombie outbreak, thanks to a model examining how an undead plague might ravage the United States.